


Unexpected

by Bumblie_Bee



Series: The bad days are needed to make the good days seem good [2]
Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, ellison state park, kind of anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-28
Updated: 2020-02-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:00:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22930633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bumblie_Bee/pseuds/Bumblie_Bee
Summary: Connor hadn't expected to come back out of Ellison State Park alive.He also hadn't expected to save a life while he had been there.Part 1 of the series doesn't need to have been read for this to make sense.
Relationships: Evan Hansen & Connor Murphy
Series: The bad days are needed to make the good days seem good [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1648063
Comments: 2
Kudos: 55





	Unexpected

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a challenge on tumblr: write a scene from a fic you've already written in a different character's POV. It's based on a scene in chapter 2 of "The good days are needed..." 
> 
> Find me on tumblr - bumblie-bee

Connor had had a plan for that day.

He’d had a plan, and he’d had means, and motive, and opportunity.

He’d almost chucked at that thought as he’d driven to the Park, giggled at the fact that it very much sounded like he was about to go and commit a murder.

Maybe he was, he’d realised as he pulled into the parking lot; he was certainly going into Ellison State Park with the intent of removing a life from the planet anyway. 

He kind of decided it didn’t count as murder as he was walking through the trees with a joint in one hand and the other clasped around the white plastic bottle nestled safely in the pocket of his hoodie, since for a death to count as murder, it probably had to be a person who dies, and Connor’s long since accepted that he doesn’t really count as a person any more.

Not a person who other people care enough to consider a person, anyway. 

The plan had been foiled, though, and not by Zoe and his parents unlike last time, but rather by a boy laying beneath a tree.

“Hey, watch it, fuck head,” Connor had spat at the sandy haired boy on the grass who he had almost tripped over and then he’d walked a few more steps before his lethargic mind had fully comprehended what he had found.

The sounds of the forest muted and the joint almost slipped from his fingers at the realisation that he seemed to have quite literally stumbled across a body in the forest.

Jesus fucking Christ.

The irony.

Feeling suddenly very sober, Connor stared at the boy for a moment, at his bloodied forehead and too pale skin and very clearly broken left arm. Nausea bubbled in his gut at the sight of it before he forced his eyes away, back to his lax face and closed eyes. It was as his eyes found the broken branch the boy was lying beside that a thought crossed his mind.

It was a thought that was almost ridiculous, one he could definitely blame on the pot, but one that did kind of make sense all the same.

In cartoons, they always prodded the body with a stick to check it’s dead and not just unconscious, and although Connor wasn’t about to jab the sandy-haired boy with one of the sticks he knocked loose form the tree as he fell, he knew he should probably do something just to check.

Hell, even if the boy was dead, Connor should probably do something. He should call the police at least, let them know where his body is. His family would want to know what happened to him after all.

The irony of that thought wasn’t lost on him, and he let out a choked sort of giggle he decided to blame on pot rather than shock as he walked the few steps he needed to back towards the boy.

Or not a boy, really. He’s a teenager, about his age maybe. It took Connor a second longer to realise they probably went to the same school. 

Connor frowned at him for a moment, trying to place the once perfectly styled sandy coloured hair that kind of looked a little familiar, when he thought about it, and force recognition of the fraction of the pale face that wasn’t pressed against the scorched grass.

It wasn’t much to go on though, sandy blonde hair and a light coloured brow to match, and Connor’s mind was simultaneously slow from the drugs and rattled from the body he’d just found and probably not in the best state for remembering the name of a boy who he might have crossed paths with at school during the few days he’d actually attended.

Even after he’d given up on that, he didn’t move, just stood and stared, hanging awkwardly beside the body as he tries to summon the courage to do something.

Anything.

It wasn’t that he’s squeamish, not at all, but he didn’t really want to touch a body if he could help it either and quite suddenly, the stick option seemed awfully appealing. For a fraction of a second, Connor considered what would happen if he did just pick one from the ground and give the boy, the body, a good prod.

It wasn’t like the boy would likely care if he did.

Connor was pretty sure he was dead anyway, so what would it matter? 

He didn’t though. He couldn’t. He might be angry and moody and violent, but he wasn’t a complete monster, and so, instead, he took a breath and squatted down beside the boy.

His hand trembled as he reached out to give the boy a shake.

Or not ‘the boy’ anymore, Connor corrected seconds later, because once squatted down, he could clearly see the face of the person, could see features below the blood he recognised, and he knew exactly who it is he’d found quite unconscious and bleeding on the pine needle littered floor of the forest. 

“Hello? Evan? Hansen, can you hear me?”

Connor was shaking when he made it back to his car. He paid no thought to the tremors though, nor to the tackiness of his thumb against the car key as he unlocked it, and nor to the smears of red still caught under his nails and in the small ridges in his skin as he opened the door.

He climbed back inside a car he was certain he would never be inside again, sat in a seat that felt like it wasn’t there to his numb limbs, glanced at a phone that flashed with unread messages he didn’t think he would ever have the chance to read.

They were probably just from Fucking Larry and his mom and Zoe, probably demanding his presence at the family dinner he vaguely recalled being told to be back in time for, and although he didn’t actually intend on reading them any times soon, it was still weird to know he’d have the chance.

When he had entered the forest little over two hours ago, he hadn’t expected to come out again alive.

He hadn’t expected to save another life when he was in there either.

It was really fucking ironic when Connor thought about it, especially when he thought about why Evan Hansen had come to lie on the pine needle littered floor of the forest, about why he had nearly died there.

Nearly being the operative word, because Connor had found him, and he had saved his life, even if maybe, that hadn’t been what Evan would have wanted.

He wasn’t really sure how to feel about that.

The paramedics had said he’d done well, though, said he’d done a good job of keeping Evan awake and talking whilst they waited for the ambulance, said he’d helped by keeping him warm and still and calm even when he was hurting and cold and bleeding out internally.

One of them had called Connor a hero.

They’d said Evan wouldn’t have been alive for much longer if Connor hadn’t found him when he did.

What they didn’t know, though, was that if he hadn’t have found him, then Connor wouldn’t have been alive for very much longer either.

And sure, he could still carry out his plan. He still had his means and motive, and he still had opportunity, but there was something now that was stopping him. Before he had stumbled across Evan in that forest, he had felt like there was nothing tying him to the world. He was done. Finished. All loose ends were tied with fraying knots.

That wasn’t true now, though. There was one final loose end where there hadn’t been one before, and for that, Connor had the unconscious form of Evan Hansen to blame.

Or not to blame, it wasn’t actually his fault, but still, for some reason Connor found himself knowing that he could never end his own life when the life of the boy he’d saved was still hanging in the balance. He just couldn’t leave before he knew whether Evan was going to survive or not. Whether he was going to be okay.

And so, Connor realised as he turned the key in the ignition of a car he was sure he would never start again, maybe it wasn’t just him who had saved a life that afternoon.

Maybe, just maybe, so, unwittingly, had Evan Hansen.


End file.
